URBNET It was good to hear you return to rapping on Situation, combining the storytelling of your more recent albums with the intricate rapping of your earlier albums.

BUCK 65 Yeah, there's some stuff there. I pushed, and I felt like I got some sort of result. And that was a good learning experience, finding out it was possible to make a good balance between saying what I wanted to say and getting a story or a mood across and not sacrificing anything technically. Not that I would say I ever fully did before, but I did want to push myself even further, and it's fun as hell to do live.

URBNET What prompted your return to a more hip-hop sound?

BUCK [motioning to Skratch Bastid] Well, he certainly has a whole lot to do with it.

URBNET Was it something you thought about doing beforehand?

BUCK Maybe to a certain extent. SKRATCH BASTID It was a bit of back and forth. Like, me and Rich used to always get in touch kind of randomly, and then I think Rich heard the beats I did on the Taking Care of Business album with Pip Skid and John Smith and said [he] liked it and I said, “Okay, if you like those then I can probably send something your way.” And then we just started picking beats. Rich came over December 2005 and recorded four songs in my closet, oddly enough in the morning, too. Remember that?

BUCK Yeah.

BASTID 7am to 10am you had a window and we recorded little demo songs. And so, two of those, I think...

BUCK ...sort of survived.

BASTID The beats more than the rhymes, I think: the hook to “1957” and the beat to “Cop Shades” and the beat to “1957.”

BUCK But I think [he], maybe to a certain extent, sensed some kind of hunger or sleeping-something inside me, and I'll tell you right now, in the studio, when we were recording the final vocals – not just the demos – Paul here, he gave me a good push. There was no getting away with any sort of laziness, and he knew what he wanted to hear and what he wanted to get out of me. I can say in all honesty, I don't know if I would have pushed myself to the same extent. That was an amazing thing. And there were things that I wanted to get out of him, too. And so we ended up with this record that I'm really excited about. But, if the question is: “Has this marked some kind of full-on return or shift in direction?”, I think a record like this was in me to make and probably is in me to make at any given time, but in these last two years I've done all sorts of stuff from all over the spectrum. I pretty much finished a whole other record that will follow this one next year at some point, which is extremely different again. And the record after that, the wheels have already started to spin. I think what I'm going to do – it's been my plan for awhile – is check with a friend of mine who has a crappy old 4-track that I'm going to borrow [and] I'm going to sit down with a 4-track in a room that smells like cat piss and I'm going to make a record just using other records. I mean, I'm basically going to make another Vertex-type thing. I already have a title and everything.

URBNET And what's it going to be called?
BUCK It's going to be called The Letter Songs. It's in the works. I'm already really excited about it. I got the records all ready.

URBNET Is this something you'll be able to release on Warner?
BUCK No, probably not. But I think at that point I'll have fulfilled my contractual obligations to Warner. And it's been part of my own personal mandate in the last little while to give music away and just kind of post it up on my website anyway. For all intents and purposes, I've never made a cent off a record anyway, so I'm not going to start expecting it now, especially given the way the tide has changed in the last bunch of years. I make money doing shows, and I think giving music away serves that fairly well. I pretty much just plan on making music and giving it away, although this Radiohead experiment here last week has given me something to think about.

URBNET Bastid, was it difficult to give advice and keep Buck from being lazy during the recording of the album, especially considering he was someone you would have looked up to growing up in Halifax?
BASTID It's something that, due to our time circumstances, we didn't have time to really mess around, so I think, just like any kind of healthy relationship has boundaries or whatever, even with your friends, you can be honest with your friends without being harsh. Like, if I thought he had to do it again then I said, “You have to do that again.” For me, personally, I like when people tell me that stuff because that's a hard thing to get over, that kind of friendly barrier. But when you see the results work out as well as they have, you know, in the long run it pays to be honest about that kind of stuff. So, there was definitely a hump; it wasn't super-easy just because Rich was like a mentor to me, but at the same time I knew that he trusted me because he let me get that far.

BUCK And then for a chunk of it I was sick, too, remember that? I wasn't feeling so good. I was having some trouble breathing. Even so, doing a whole bunch of takes for some of these songs was not always easy. But, I think something Paul recognized that I had trouble recognizing myself before was that – and I've kind of gone back and looked at it now – throughout my quote-unquote career, I've noticed now that often the best performances I've ever laid to tape have been in my demos. It's been a practice for me for a long time to usually record some kind of demo immediately after I finish writing something 'cause: a) I'm just excited, but b) I think it's worth capturing it while you're still feeling it. When I go through all my stuff and compare demo versions of records to final versions of records, even if there's mistakes all over the demos, there's something about the energy of those performances that's always best. And so, when I was doing demos for Situation, I was sending them out to Paul right away and I think we all got really attached to those demos and there were things there that Paul wanted to hear at the final [session] in the studio and really wanted to capture and get that energy that was there in the demos. And I haven't always, left to my own devices, been successful in doing that in the past. So that's good. That was just really valuable for me, and I learned something from that, something that will be valuable to me in the future as well.

URBNET After the uproar over the Kerrang kerfuffle, do you wonder if the hip-hop crowd might not accept your return to hip-hop, or that it might affect the sales of a more hip-hop album from you?
BUCK I hadn't thought about it before you asked the question, but I suppose it's possible. I hope with this record, like anything else I've done, that any sort of, like, preamble or poaber [sic] or anything that's been said past or present, that the record will take on a life for itself based on word of mouth or whatever else, and that people will just judge the record on the record itself. And that's the most you can ever really hope for. Just like I wouldn't want record sales to be killed by something that has nothing to do with the record, I wouldn't be particularly happy with selling records that was based on hype or nothing else either, whatsoever, which has been real indicative of the way I've chosen to conduct my career up until now. I think, although this isn't really speaking to the question that you asked, there was definitely a period of whatever you want to call it – growing pains or something else – for a couple of years. I was trying to figure a lot of things out and, in particular, a place for myself in the hip-hop world. That's not been easy to do. It's not been easy for me to find on my own, and it's not been easy for anybody else to understand what my place is. The conclusion that I came to after struggling with it for a long time and coming face to face with the Kerrang thing and fallout around that is that just the word [hip-hop] is really problematic. And I don't think I ever really explain myself very well, but the example I've been making... I mean, put it like this: I am actually one of them nerds who will, on a night off, sit in my house and dial up the YouTube and sit there and watch Q-Bert videos for hours on end. And I can convince myself until I'm blue in the face that my belief in hip-hop is right and pure and good, and the fact that I'm really into DJ culture is as pure and as quintessential a pursuit of hip-hop whatsoever. But if I were to get into a discussion about that with a kid who idolizes Souljah Boy or something like that, we're bound to not see eye to eye, just like I don't think it's fair to expect someone's three favourite artists to be Buck 65, Q-Bert and Souljah Boy. There is wide and wild diversity there between those three names but somehow we use the word hip-hop – or at least some people try to use the word – to describe all three of those things, and that's really problematic. And I don't think I ever really stopped to think about that and sort it out. But it was a source of frustration for me and I was allowing the disagreement from the Souljah Boy camp or whatever else camp to get to me and to confuse me. Not that I've come to any real firm conclusions there or anything else, I just have to stay secure in my beliefs that Q-Bert is somehow hip-hop, Souljah Boy is somehow hip-hop, and if that's the case then goddammit somehow I'm hip-hop as well. And just like any two given people are never bound to see eye to eye, I can't expect everyone to see eye to eye with me and vice versa. Until one day we can all wake up to that fact and maybe get over ourselves a little bit, these sorts of headbuttings and whatever else are gonna happen forever. We're all purists. We all know and believe that we're right. So, we're never going to get along. If there's one thing I learned in this whole process, the one that I've concluded that is really valuable and important for me, is for me to start with myself and say I'm no expert, I don't have the answer for anything. I'll be the first to surrender that 'cause if I stubbornly hang on to it and expect everyone else to give up, it's going to be a pissing contest. I'll be the first to surrender and say, “Look, I don't know, I don't know what to call what I'm doing either. I don't think it's any better or any more pure.” And that's all there is to it. And that just requires a real measure of humility to just say, “I'll let go.”

URBNET You mentioned to me in a previous interview that you were going to do a hip-hop album with Jorun. Is that still in the works?
BUCK It is. I just got an email from Jorun two nights ago with some beats. So, it's the sort of thing that's bound to move pretty slow. But it's in the works, and we have done a bit of recording here in the last year or so. I did something for a record he's working on right now and he sent me a bunch of beats that I've laid stuff down on. I mean, that's tight. I don't think I have to tell anyone sitting here in this room that that guy was a genius and a criminally overlooked one at that. Man alive, I can't wait to put together another thing top to bottom with Jo, and it'll have been a really, really long time. But, we're working on some stuff. And the beats that he's sending me, goodness gracious!

URBNET So, you're looking at a full length collaboration?
BUCK Full length thing, top to bottom, me and Jo. No timeline on it whatsoever. I don't know how long that will take. We don't live in the same city. And Jo's got his concerns and things going on and I've got mine. But, it's a priority for us both and we are chipping away at it.

URBNET Any chance of a Haltown Projex reunion track on there? Or maybe some work with some of the members?
BUCK Well, I know with the level of nostalgia that exists in me, and arguably the even stronger sense of nostalgia that exists in Jo, no one could dismiss the possibility of something like that happening. It's an exciting idea to me and it would be an exciting idea to Jo. It just really comes down to a question of logistics, just to kind of get everyone together. Not exactly the same thing, but there was a period of about a week out in Halifax recently – I went to out to do a show – and in the previous week both Hip Club Groove did a show and Josh Martinez went up there to do a show, and Paul gets there all the time. Even just that, even though we weren't in the same room at the same time, just the fact that these things were happening, people were going back home, there was excitement. People were talking about it everywhere I went. So, I'd love to hear it. There's a big chunk of my heart that still lives there and then and always will. It's hard for me to look back on those times and not see it as a highlight, arguably even to this day, like the best time of my whole musical life, just the excitement of those days and what it meant and how pure it is. I could really go into a whole other kind of crazy discussion with you about what it means to stay home and keep things small versus the path that I've been on, but suffice to say I've had some pretty fascinating conversations with Jo about the arc of our careers up until now. Some pretty telling stuff. There's some things that I would love to be able to discuss publicly that I've learned you just can't. It's a bit of a shame. It's interesting stuff. There's just so many things I think are worth looking at that are maybe too obvious that most people choose not to. Just leave it at that.

URBNET After Haltown Projex, starting with Stinkin' Rich, you've predominantly produced for yourself. Why go to an outside source for Situation?
BUCK In a sense, it just sort of felt like an obvious thing to do. Paul and I are friends. The idea of people who are friends and who share a common passion working together made sense. A lot of my friends who are in this business are rappers or whatever and I've worked with them. But Paul's a DJ and a producer, and I do and can and have done all these things, so obviously, logically speaking, it makes sense for him to do what he does and for me to do my thing. And beyond that, I didn't really think about or get too philosophical about it. But, it was definitely an interesting exercise. And it's not the first time I've worked with another producer. Obviously I've done it with DJ Signify, and I've had Jorun beats on some of my other records. But, I like to challenge myself and to do things differently whenever I get the opportunity to do it, so just to hand it over completely to Paul was liberating and a good learning experience. Although in some cases I'm sure it's fair to say that there's beats on the record that are a perfect fit, naturally right up my alley. There's a few things put together that I probably wouldn't have thought to put them together the same way or some sounds that I might not have picked out in the same way that Paul has. I think that's valuable, too. Maybe that represents us going outside my comfort zone a little bit.

URBNET Did Bastid just give you the beats and that was it, or did you have some input into their creation?
BASTID When [I] collaborate with someone, I do put out the feelers. Like, I get a sense of what Rich is like. Rich is the type of person when he likes something he really likes it, so I knew what he liked. And other stuff that he might not have been as excited on, I either would try and make it more exciting or start a different direction with it. I just get the feel for it.

BUCK [to Bastid] It seems to me, too, after we had our first four or five demos or so, at a certain point you'd had a conversation with Justin, too, right? And he had some input and feedback about things.

BASTID DJ Signify is the harshest motherfucker when it comes to not liking shit and things being a certain way. So, I passed it over to Justin and he's like...

BUCK ...“I hate this!” [laughs from everyone].

BASTID I'm just like, “Okay, thanks Justin.” And then we had him satisfied at one point, and he's a big Buck fan, so it's kind of like his vote of confidence goes a long way.

BUCK We also discussed, I remember really early on, getting Dibbs involved in this record. It was just kind of tough to corner him on it.

BASTID Yeah, the thing about him, he started working on the El-P tour and the album, too. I sent Dibbs out all the demo beats and said, “What can you do?” He actually wanted to kind of incorporate some of his scratching into the instrumentals, some of that signature Dibbs, just like simple high-hat cuts and almost like ambient scratches. It didn't really work out. It's too bad, but at the same time I definitely tried to do some of that kind of stuff on “Ho-Boys” and try to kind of fit it. It would have been nice to have him on there as the father of, like, [the 1200 Hobos].

BUCK I remember thinking early on that I really wanted to make this sort of, in a sense, like a quintessential 1200 Hobos-type record. DJ Signify did make some beats on this record. We talked about getting Rob on the record.

BASTID Rob isn't rapping anymore really right now.

BUCK And Dibbs. And that's pretty much where the origins of that “Ho-Boys” song comes from, with that spirit in mind. I just did a show in Paris with El-P and Dibbs, of all things. It went really well and there was lots of hugging going on [laughs], I'm happy to report.

URBNET In terms of production, I understand there was a problem with the original conception of the album. What happened and how did you fix it?
BUCK There's a lot of versions of this record. [To Bastid] Do you want to explain that?

BASTID Basically, you have the original four demos that we recorded in the closet, of which we kept two beats, one chorus. That was just our first time recording. Four months later we spent about ten days to two weeks exchanging daily emails like, “Oh, I've got another, here's a beat,” and I'd just send him a beat, whether it was something I had laying around or whether it was something I updated, and then he'd write “keep sending, keep sending them.” He'd write to them and then one day he just wrote back, he's like, “Okay, here's the demo,” and he sent me back 10 or 11 songs at that time, in one day. I was flattered, he was really going for it. And that was the demo-demo, which was him recording in a room probably this size with a microphone, so it was pretty shabby quality, but at the same time all the elements were there and there's definitely a certain kind of feel to that that is desirable. That was the demo that started floating around. That's the thing that kind of got people interested with the labels. Then Rich came over to Halifax and we recorded the vocals in a proper studio with some updated beats – a bit updated – and then we thought we were done. And then the label looked further into it. We're like, “It can't be that much to clear a sample,” until you take it to a sample clearance company who first of all wanted $500 per song to even investigate the samples on the songs. So, when you look at 14 songs times $500, that's $7000 to look for samples. Once they approve the sample, if they got approval from someone, they wanted another $500. So, if we got approval for that, we're looking at $14 000, then you're looking at what the artists you sampled want in return, which we never saw dip below two or three thousand dollars.

BUCK And sometimes it was considerably more.

BASTID Sometimes it was up to nine or ten [thousand]. Originally, in “1957” we scratched Doug E Fresh “All the Way to Heaven.” I was like, “All the way to heaven-heaven-eaven, all the way to heaven,” and he wanted $9000 for a scratch. So just the astronomical price of that made us go back. And that's the thing. I think that the hip-hop community is still a bit in the dark about how sampling works, but with the nature of the music industry right now, it's a real issue, man.

BUCK It's not cheap.

BASTID So, we said, “Well, that's a challenge, but we're up for it. We've got capable musicians.” So, we went back to the drawing board and worked up some new stuff.

URBNET So you had people playing similar stuff to the samples?
BASTID Yeah, we cleared two samples on the record and had the rest played in alternate ways.

BUCK Just with the intent to preserve the spirit of the original version of the song as much as possible, so keeping things in the same key, same feel, usually using the same palette of instruments.

URBNET How different are the versions?
BASTID You can tell which song's which, but definitely you can hear differences in the instrumentals. What I would make sure to try to do is keep things still a bit dirty because that was my pet peeve about live instruments on records. Yeah, it was a huge project and it was a great experience as a producer, and I think we came up with some stuff that [you'll hear] once that leaked version floats around, which I'm sure eventually it's going to fall into some hands, but I think we're going to hang onto it for a while. I don't even know if it will see the light of day, seriously, but it's out there somewhere.

URBNET I'm sure there are a lot of Buck 65 completists that would love to check that out and be able to compare...
BUCK Including yourself?

URBNET I have to admit that I'd like to be able to compare the different versions.
BASTID Of course. And I think a lot of people would like to hear it. We want to let people digest this on first.

URBNET Yeah, you don't want them competing against each other for attention. Now, there's been some bad blood between you and Sage Francis but now Situation is coming out on his label, Strange Famous, in the U.S. How did that happen?
BUCK I don't think Sage would argue with me if I said he was insane. And I'm pretty insane, too. He and I are just a lot alike. In fact, I think we're a bit like brothers. And I have an actual brother and we don't always get along. So, since we've known each other we've gone through all sorts of ups and downs, which are usually just rooted in personal things, things he's gone through and things I've gone through and so on. But, at the end of the day we're friends and he's an important person to me and I think I'm an important person to him. I was looking for a home for this record in the U.S. after V2 folded and I had been talking to a whole bunch of different people, and I haven't really mentioned this to anyone else before, but I'll tell you two of the people I was talking to: some were in the Warner family, there were some options there that we were investigating and that seemed to be open; I was talking to Anticon about going back with them. But, at one point I bumped into Sage and talked to him about what was going on. He said, “I'd really like to talk to you about what I could do and how I might be able to help you out,” and he made the best sounding offer yet. And to bring things up to speed, I was on the phone with him this morning and he spent the entire day yesterday calling 100 retailers all over the United States himself saying, “Look, we've got this record and we really want you to get behind it,” and stuff. It's not too many people that have that kind of ambition where it's a little guy who's running the label is calling up the stores and saying, “Look, I need your support on this.” The guy is just endlessly ambitious. And everything about it just seemed to be the right and most logical fit. It was kind of a conscious decision on my part to go with a small indie label as opposed to the major label options that were open to me. It's going to be real fascinating for me, and I think everyone, to see how things go with this record, to compare how it goes in the U.S. on a small indie compared to everywhere else on a major label. Fascinating tales will be told about that.

URBNET Is this the first non-Sage Francis album for his label?
BUCK Yeah, I think it is. I believe that it is, but he's got a handful of other releases lined up. He does have some other artists that he's working with. But yeah, I believe that this is the first one that doesn't have his name on it.

URBNET Why Situation as the title?
BUCK I was really fascinated with Situationism and The Situationist International movement leading up to making this record, which is pretty much the root of it. I also just like the sound of the word. And, it could be said that the album as a whole or each individual song describes a certain situation. But, it's definitely a reference to Situationist International.

URBNET For those without much background on Situationist International, does it somehow relate to the album's theme of 1957?

BUCK Situationist International was formed in 1957 and was definitely a product of the times, what was happening in the world socially and politically and even culturally. So, it definitely factors in that way. This whole '57 thing is a starting point and a source of inspiration, but once I was inspired and had some ideas to draw on, I ran away from them as fast as I could 'cause I didn't want to make a concept record. But, the record's definitely been marketed in a fairly conceptual way.

URBNET So, you're saying you actively tried to avoid connecting them?
BUCK Yeah. All I wanted to take from it was inspiration because, with the first batch of demos Paul described (the four or five demos we recorded in the closet), they pretty much ended up getting discarded. I found what they lacked; they felt uninspired.

BASTID More like freestyles. You know how people say freestyles that aren't off your head freestyles? Just one of those rap exercises, really.

BUCK So, I knew I needed to start over and just get inspired.

BASTID I really think these songs, even though they could be [linked], you take them out of context [and] it's not like you feel like it's one piece of a puzzle.

BUCK It's important that every song stood on its own. So, even a song like “1957” or “Shutterbuggin” or whatever else.

BASTID Yeah, even like “1957,” which could be used as a theme song or a dramatic piece, you hear it separately it's just a song about 1957, it's not like it's part one of 16.

Quote: URBNET After the uproar over the Kerrang kerfuffle, do you wonder if the hip-hop crowd might not accept your return to hip-hop, or that it might affect the sales of a more hip-hop album from you?
BUCK I hadn't thought about it before you asked the question, but I suppose it's possible. I hope with this record, like anything else I've done, that any sort of, like, preamble or poaber [sic] or anything that's been said past or present, that the record will take on a life for itself based on word of mouth or whatever else, and that people will just judge the record on the record itself. And that's the most you can ever really hope for. Just like I wouldn't want record sales to be killed by something that has nothing to do with the record, I wouldn't be particularly happy with selling records that was based on hype or nothing else either, whatsoever, which has been real indicative of the way I've chosen to conduct my career up until now. I think, although this isn't really speaking to the question that you asked, there was definitely a period of whatever you want to call it – growing pains or something else – for a couple of years. I was trying to figure a lot of things out and, in particular, a place for myself in the hip-hop world. That's not been easy to do. It's not been easy for me to find on my own, and it's not been easy for anybody else to understand what my place is. The conclusion that I came to after struggling with it for a long time and coming face to face with the Kerrang thing and fallout around that is that just the word [hip-hop] is really problematic. And I don't think I ever really explain myself very well, but the example I've been making... I mean, put it like this: I am actually one of them nerds who will, on a night off, sit in my house and dial up the YouTube and sit there and watch Q-Bert videos for hours on end. And I can convince myself until I'm blue in the face that my belief in hip-hop is right and pure and good, and the fact that I'm really into DJ culture is as pure and as quintessential a pursuit of hip-hop whatsoever. But if I were to get into a discussion about that with a kid who idolizes Souljah Boy or something like that, we're bound to not see eye to eye, just like I don't think it's fair to expect someone's three favourite artists to be Buck 65, Q-Bert and Souljah Boy. There is wide and wild diversity there between those three names but somehow we use the word hip-hop – or at least some people try to use the word – to describe all three of those things, and that's really problematic. And I don't think I ever really stopped to think about that and sort it out. But it was a source of frustration for me and I was allowing the disagreement from the Souljah Boy camp or whatever else camp to get to me and to confuse me. Not that I've come to any real firm conclusions there or anything else, I just have to stay secure in my beliefs that Q-Bert is somehow hip-hop, Souljah Boy is somehow hip-hop, and if that's the case then goddammit somehow I'm hip-hop as well. And just like any two given people are never bound to see eye to eye, I can't expect everyone to see eye to eye with me and vice versa. Until one day we can all wake up to that fact and maybe get over ourselves a little bit, these sorts of headbuttings and whatever else are gonna happen forever. We're all purists. We all know and believe that we're right. So, we're never going to get along. If there's one thing I learned in this whole process, the one that I've concluded that is really valuable and important for me, is for me to start with myself and say I'm no expert, I don't have the answer for anything. I'll be the first to surrender that 'cause if I stubbornly hang on to it and expect everyone else to give up, it's going to be a pissing contest. I'll be the first to surrender and say, “Look, I don't know, I don't know what to call what I'm doing either. I don't think it's any better or any more pure.” And that's all there is to it. And that just requires a real measure of humility to just say, “I'll let go.”

Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:29 pm

selfportrait

Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Posts: 1596
Location: Toronto, Canada

great interview, and crusader's right, that part was really well said by buck. and sage, you work too hard.

Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:45 am

Dyss

Joined: 05 Sep 2002
Posts: 1517
Location: SWE

Great interview! Thanks for posting this up here. I like the honesty both Buck and Sage seems to have in all their interviews, good stuff.

On a related note: I would like to see that Cribs episode with Buck, anyone know where to look?

Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:56 am

PHIL LACIO AKA P DAWGthe godfather of troll

Joined: 18 Oct 2002
Posts: 4825

I would love to hear the version of 1957 with "all the way to heaven" in it
i used to watch that video religiously on b.e.t. in 86-87
and loved that song..still do

Tue Jan 22, 2008 11:23 am

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